Was ALGOL ever used for “mainstream” programming?

Question

I know that ALGOL language is super-uber-extremely important as a theoretical language, and it also had a variety of implementations as per Wikipedia.

However, what's unclear is, was ALGOL (pure ALGOL, not any of its derivatives like Simula) ever actually used for any "real" programming in any way?

By "real", I mean used for several good-sized projects other than programming language/CS research, or by a significant number of developers (say, > 1000).

Personally, the only ALGOL programming I have ever done was on paper, thus the curiosity.

Answer 1

Burroughs B5500 Extended Algol was used heavily for research in astrophysics, linguistics, and statistics at my university (Monash University, Australia) in the late 60s. It was also used in commercial applications that helped pay the bills for the computer center.

As I write this I am running Algol programs in the latest release of the Burroughs B5500 emulator from the team at retro-b5500 in Tasmania. The emulator runs entirely in the browser and faithfully models the processors, disks, tapes, card readers, line printers, card punches and datacom gear!

You can read about the project at http://retro-b5500.blogspot.com/ and http://code.google.com/p/retro-b5500 and you can write Algol programs for arguably the finest Algol machine ever made (except perhaps its successor the B6700.)

One of the postdocs from Monash wrote a reverse compiler from IBM Assembler to Burroughs COBOL in Algol, which was used to migrate all the billing applications at the state-run Gas & Fuel Corporation from IBM 360s to Burroughs 6700s.

Answer 2

Nothing like responding to 2 year old threads. I program in ALGOL almost daily. I am a programmer on a Unisys ClearPath mainframe and the majority of the system code is written in ALGOL or variants. The Burroughs B5500 was really designed around the language so it is a pretty efficient language/compilation process. Granted, this version is ALGOL with some extensions like limited classes (structure blocks), etc.

i := 80;
while i > 0 do
   begin
   scan ptrRay:ptrRay for i:i until in ALPHA;
   scan ptrEnd:ptrRay for i:i while in ALPHA;
   if i > 0 then
      begin
      replace nextToken by ptrRay for (offset(ptrEnd) - offset(ptrRay)); 
      end;
   end;

That code scans for ALPHA only tokens. It uses the OFFSET function which is a little more costly than using the residual count math yourself (i, starti, etc);

Answer 3

When I started programming, Algol was the only compiler available. Yes, it was mainstream till we got a Fortran compiler.

Answer 4

I programmed in Algol/Jovial back in the 70's for the military. I loved the language. You couldn't do recursion in Fortran and I often could make a program much easier by using the correct data structure and a little recursion.

After I had left that assignment, I found that the other developers on the project didn't want to maintain the Jovial code and tried to replicate what I had done in Fortran. It just didn't work and was much slower.

I learned about compiler theory by digging into the source code for the Jovial compiler. Ah... those were the days.

Answer 5

Algol was the major programming language for the Burroughs B5000.

Answer 6

To follow up on themis' answer, the entire Burroughs "large system" family (5000, 5500, 5700, 6500, 6700...) was really designed to run Algol well. The operating system, compilers, and major system utilities were written in Algol; if that's not "real" programming, what is?

To be precise, over the life of the product family Burroughs extended Algol into a superset called ESPOL. When Burroughs brought out the "small systems" family (1700, 1800, 1900 series), they defined another Algol-like language called SDL (Systems Development Language) in which the operating software of that line was written. Access to SDL was restricted for security reasons. A variant of SDL was subsequently created with a few of the "priveleged" features removed. The resulting language, called UPL (User Programming Language), was available for customer use.

Some of us still remember when the phrase "Algol-like language" was used to describe any programming language with block-oriented control structures and variable scoping. Widely-known examples of Algol-like languages included PL/I, Pascal, and (...wait for it...) C.